I'm a what?
by Aria-Ride-Daughter-of-Hecate
Summary: "CALM? Do Not Tell Me To Be CALM, Perseus Jackson!" "Aria!" "WHAT!" "Stay clam!" I fumed and slapped him.
1. Full Summary

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous.

It's scary.

Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before _**they**_ sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Aria Ride. I'm 12 years old and live in New York. I go to a school called Yancy Academy.

And this is my story.

_**PLEASE READ!**_

I am changing the story to where Percy's sent IS strong, but Aria's is stronger because she is much more powerful. So all of these monsters will be after Aria, not Percy. Well besides Medusa, but that's because the freak likes Son's of Poseidon.

A/N: I own nothing but my OCs. Everything else, settings, characters, etc, are Rick Riordan's.


	2. Chapter 1

Hi! Ok, I don't own PJO or any of the characters except Aria. And a lot of the start will pretty much be just like the book, but that will change later on. So, sorry! And Annabeth WILL be in the story, but just not a major character. Thank you.

* * *

Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.

If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.

Being a half-blood is dangerous. It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.

If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think it's fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.

But if you recognize yourself in these pages - if you feel something stirring inside - stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

My name is Aria Ride.

I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, my best friend and I were boarding students at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.

Are we troubled kids?

Yeah. You could say that.

I could start at any point in our short miserable lives to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan - twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.

I know - it sounds like torture. Most Yancy field trips were.

But Mr. Brunner, our awesome Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so, for once, we had hopes.

Mr. Brunner was this middle-aged man in a motorized wheelchair. He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armor and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.

I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once we wouldn't get in trouble.

Boy, was I wrong.

See, bad things happen to us on field trips. Like at our fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. we wern't aiming for the school bus, but of course we got expelled anyway. I still have a burn mark on my hand from where I made the fire that made him set it off...

And before that, at our fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim and he got blamed too. And the time before that... Well, you get the idea.

This trip, we was determined to be good.

I should have known better...

All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl, hitting my second best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich. I could tell my other best friend, Percy, was trying not to kill her.

Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin. On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.

Percy on the other hand, was the complete opposite. Well, his reall name was Perseus Jackson. He hates it, but I think it's cool. He has blackish hair and sea green eyes. He's 12, like me, and we have been together since we were born. Him and his mom had taken me in after my parents left.

Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew Percy and I couldn't do anything back to her because we was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened us with death by in-school suspension if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.

"I'm going to kill her," Percy mumbled.

Grover tried to calm him down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."

He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.

"That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.

"You two are already on probation," he reminded us. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."

Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there. In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess we were about to get ourself into.

Mr. Brunner led the museum tour.

He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.

It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.

He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. Me and Percy were trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time we told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give us the evil eye.

Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.

From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured Percy and I were devil spawns. She would point her crooked finger at us and say, "Now, honeys," real sweet, and we knew we were going to get after-school detention for a month.

One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at us, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."

Mr. Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.

Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something the naked guy on the stele, and Percy turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"

It came out louder than he meant it to.

The whole group laughed. Mr. Brunner stopped his story.

"Mr. Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"

His face was pretty red. He said, "No, sir."

Mr. Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"

He looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because he actually knew it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"

"Yes," Mr. Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because ..."

"Well..." he was clearly racking his brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and - "

"God?" Mr. Brunner asked.

"Titan," I corrected him. "And ... he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead. And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters - "

"Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.

" - and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," he continued, "and the gods won."

Some snickers from the group.

I just looked at him. "You just summerized one of the biggest wars in mythology in out sentence." I said in awe.

He just shrugged.

Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"

"And why, ," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"

"Busted," Grover muttered.

"Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.

At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr. Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.

I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."

"I see." Mr. Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr. Jackson and Ms. Ride. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"

The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.

Grover, Percy, and I were about to follow when Mr. Brunner said, "Mr. Jackson, Ms. Ride."

I knew that was coming.

I told Grover to keep going. Then we turned toward Mr. Brunner. "Sir?"

Mr. Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go - intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.

"You must learn the answer to my question," Mr. Brunner told us.

"About the Titans?"

"About real life. And how your studies apply to it."

"Oh." said Percy.

"What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you both to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you two."

I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed us sohard.

I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armor and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped. But Mr. Brunner expected us to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that we have dyslexia and ADHD and we had never made above a C - in my life. No - he didn't expect us to be as good; he expected us both to be better. And both of us just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.

Percy mumbled something about trying harder and I just nodded my head, while Mr. Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.

He told me and Percy to go outside and eat our lunches.

The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.

Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York state had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.

'I wonder what it would be like if the Greek gods were real?' I thought. I was clearly deep in thought because Percy had to snap his fingers in my fabe. "Sorry what?" I asked.

Nobody else seemed to notice the storm. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.

We sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school - the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.

"Detention?" Grover asked.

"Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean - I'm not a genius."

"Understatement of the century." joked Percy. I just slapped his arm.

Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make us feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"

I didn't have much of an appetite and neither did Percy, so we let him take both of ours.

I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about Mrs. Jackson's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. Me and Percy hadn't seen her since Christmas. We wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug us and be glad to see the both of us, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send us right back to Yancy, remind Pery and I that we had to try harder, even if this was our sixth school in six years and we were probably going to be kicked out again. We wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give us.

Mr. Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.

I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends - I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists - and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.

"Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.

I tried to stay cool. The school counselor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.

I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy and Aria pushed me!"

Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.

Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see - "

" - the water - "

" - like it grabbed her - "

" - the silver - "

" - like is was part of the water - "

I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.

As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on us. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if we'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honeys - "

"I know," Percy grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."

That wasn't the right thing to say.

"Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.

"Wait!" Grover yelped.

"It was me. I pushed her."

I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for mus. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.

She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.

"I don't think so, Mr. Underwood," she said.

"But - "

"You - will - stay - here."

Grover looked at me desperately.

"It's okay, G," I told him. "Thanks for trying," Percy said.

"Honeys," Mrs. Dodds barked at us. "Now."

Nancy Bobofit smirked.

We gave her our deluxe we'll-kill-you-later stares. Then we turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at the both of us to come on.

Me and Percy looked at eachother and I knew we thought the same thing. How'd she get there so fast?

We have moments like that a lot, when our brains falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if I'd fallen out of time, even for a second. The school counselor told us this was part of the ADHD, our brains misinterpreting things.

I wasn't so sure.

But, we went after Mrs. Dodds.

Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me, Percy and Mr. Brunner, like he wanted Mr. Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr. Brunner was absorbed in his weird book that looked like it was about something Greek.

I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.

Okay, I thought. She's going to make Percy buy a new shirt and me buy a souvenir for Nancy at the gift shop.

But that didn't happen.

We followed her deeper into the museum. When the both of us finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.

Except for us, the gallery was empty.

Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.

Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with your best friend and a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to completely destroy it...

"You've both been giving us problems, honey," she said.

I didn't know what to do so I did what I though was safe. I said, "Yes, ma'am."

She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you two would get away with it?"

The look in her eyes was way past mad. It was pure evil.

She's a teacher, I thought. Iknow she hates me, but she wouldn't hurt us right?

Percy said, "We'll - we'll try harder, ma'am."

Thunder shook the building.

"We are not fools, Percy Jackson and Arianna Ride," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."

I had no clue what she was talking about, but I was mad. She used my real name...

All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy me and Percy had been selling out of his dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized Percy got his essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away our grades. Or worse, they were going to make him read the book.

"Well?" she demanded.

"Ma'am, we don't..." started Percy

"Your time is up," she hissed.

Then the strangest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like fiery coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into long, sharp talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a Fury. She was a shriveled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice both, me and Percy to ribbons.

Then things got even stranger.

Mr. Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a two pens in his hand.

"What ho, Percy, Aria!" he shouted, and tossed the pens through the air.

Mrs. Dodds lunged at Percy.

With a yelp, I pushed him out of the way and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched one of the ballpoint pens out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword - Mr. Brunner's golden sword, which he sometimes use on tournament day. I looked over at Percy. He had the bronze one that Mr. Brunner always used.

Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.

My kness were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.

She snarled, "Die, honey!"

And she flew straight at me.

Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally:

I swung the sword.

The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water.

Hisss!

Mrs. Dodds was glitter in a fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulfur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.

We were alone.

There were ballpoint pens in our hands.

Mr. Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but us.

My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.

Had we imagined the whole thing?

We then went back outside.

It had started to rain.

Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw us, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butts."

Percy said, "Who?"

"Our teacher. Duh!"

I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.

She just rolled her eyes and turned away.

Percy asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.

He said, "Who?"

But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I knew he was lieing to us.

Everyone knew to never hesitate. It instantly gives the lie away.

"Not funny, G," I told him. "This is serious."

Thunder boomed overhead.

I saw Mr. Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his wierd book, as if he'd never moved.

I went over to him.

He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr. Jackson, Ms. Ride."

I handed Mr. Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.

"Sir," Percy said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"

He stared at him blankly. "Who?"

"The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher." I said.

He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, Aria, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you two feeling all right?"


	3. Chapter 2

Me and Percy were used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This every minute thing was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of cruel practical joke on me and Percy. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs. Kerr - an overly perky blond woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip - had been our pre-algebra teacher since Christmas.

Every so often Percy would spring a Mrs. Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if he could trip them up, but they would stare at him like he was psycho.

Which he was.

But not in that sense.

Eventually, Percy just stopped and believed them.

It got so I almost believed them too - Mrs. Dodds had never existed.

Almost.

But Grover couldn't fool me. When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist. But I knew he was lying.

Percy might not have.

But I did.

Something was going on. A fury had attacked me and Percy at the museum.

I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs. Dodds as the fury, with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.

The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, when I was sleeping in Percy and Grover's dorm, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in Percy's dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.

I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time.

Percy kept making a joke that is was my time of the month.

I slapped him.

My grades slipped from C+s to D-s. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.

Finally, when our English teacher, Mr. Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot.

Percy had not idea that it meant old drunk, but he didn't care.

He just laughed.

The headmaster sent Percy's mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.

Fine, I told myself. Just fine.

I was homesick.

I wanted to be with Percy and his mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with Percy's obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.

And yet... there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange. I worried how he'd survive next year without me. He says I keep him sane. I dout it. I'm crazier than anyone at that school.

I'd miss Latin class, too - Mr. Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.

As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr. Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I knew it was, but he didn't have to say it...

The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards. I knew the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. But conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.

I paced the room, feeling like little bugs were crawling all over me.

I remembered Mr. Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Ariana Ride.

I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.

I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr. Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the D- I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah. I know. It sounds like I'm a teacher's pet.

Far from it.

I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr. Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallwayfloor.

I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr. Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said "... worried about Percy and Ari, sir."

I froze.

I don't normally eavesdrop on friends, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.

I inched closer.

"... alone this summer," Grover was saying. "I mean, a Kindly One in the school! Now that we know for sure, and they know too - "

"We would only make matters worse by rushing thim," Mr. Brunner said. "We need the boy to mature more."

It took everything in me not to laugh. If they were gonna wait to take us to that camp until Percy matured more, we would already be dead.

"But they may not have time. The summer solstice deadline - "

"Will have to be resolved without her, Grover. Let him enjoy their ignorance while they still can."

"Sir, she saw her. Percy dosn't believe it anymore but she does... ."

"Her imagination," Mr. Brunner insisted. "The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince her of that."

"Sir, I ... I can't fail in my duties again." Grover's voice was choked with emotion. "You know what that would mean."

"You haven't failed, Grover," Mr. Brunner said kindly. "I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Aria and Percy alive until next fall - "

I couldn't listen anymore. I purposely dropped the text book and it hit the floor with a loud thud.

Mr. Brunner went silent

I picked up the book and backed down the hall.

A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.

I knew it.

I knew he wasn't human.

He was a centaur.

I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.

A few seconds later I heard the slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. Mr. Brunner then moved on.

A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.

Somewhere in the hallway, Mr. Brunner spoke. "Nothing," he murmured. "My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice."

"Mine neither," Grover said. "But I could have sworn ..."

"Go back to the dorm," Mr. Brunner told him. "You've got a long day of exams tomorrow."

"Don't remind me."

The lights went out in Mr. Brunner's office.

I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.

Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to Percy and Grover's dorm.

Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.

Percy, of course, was asleep...

"Hey," he said, bleary-eyed. "You going to be ready for this test?"

I didn't answer.

"You look awful." He frowned. "Is everything okay?"

"Just... tired."

I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.

I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.

But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr. Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They knew I was in some kind of danger.

And now I knew too..

The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam, my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr. Brunner called me back inside.

For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.

"Aria," he said. "Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's ... it's for the best."

His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips. I swear I could have killed her then and there.

I mumbled, "Okay, sir."

"I mean ..." Mr. Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. "This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time."

My eyes stung.

Here was my favorite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.

"Right," I said, trembling.

"No, no," Mr. Brunner said. "Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say ... you're not normal, Aria. That's nothing to be - "

"Thanks," I blurted. "Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me."

I knew what he meant but it still sounded terrible.

"Ariana - "

But I was already gone.

On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase and helped Percy and Grover pack some of their stuff.

The other sluts- I'm sorry, _girls_ were gossiping, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a ski trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juveniles, like me, but they were rich juveniles. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities. I was a nobody, from a family of not-so-nobobies but no one knew that.

They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.

What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the fall.

"Oh," one of the girls said. "That sound cool."

They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.

The only person I dreaded saying good-bye to was Grover, but as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.

Percy had gotten another bus. Who knows why.

During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.

Finally I couldn't stand it anymore.

I said, "Looking for Kindly Ones?"

Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. "Wha - what do you mean?"

I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr. Brunner the night before the exam.

Grover's eye twitched. "How much did you hear?"

"Oh ... not much. What's the summer solstice dead-line?"

He winced. "Look, Aria ... I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon math teachers ..."

"Grover - "

"And I was telling Mr. Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs. Dodds, and ..."

"Grover, you're a really, really bad liar and I know about the fury."

His ears turned pink, but he looked scared when I said fury.

From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. "Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.

The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes, but I finally made out something like:

Grover Underwood

Keeper

Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York

(800) 009-0009

"What's Half - "

"Don't say it aloud!" he yelped. "That's my, um ... summer address."

My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.

"Okay," I said glumly. "So, like, if I want to come visit your estate or something."

He nodded. "Or ... or if you need me."

"Why would I need you?"

It came out much more harsh than I meant it to.

So I instantly felt bad.

Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. "Look, Aria, the truth is, I - I kind of have to protect you and Percy. But mostly you."

I stared at him.

All year long, Percy'd gotten in fights, keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without Percy. And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.

"Grover," I said, "what exactly are you protecting me from?"

There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs. The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.

After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.

We were on a stretch of country road - no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.

The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of bloodred cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.

I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of neon green yarn.

All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.

The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.

I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.

"Grover?" I said. "Hey, man - "

"Tell me they're not looking at you. They are, aren't they?"

"Yeah. Weird, huh? I wonder why."

Grover just looked at me.

The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors - gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears. I heard Grover catch his breath.

"We're getting on the bus," he told me. "Come on."

"What?" I said. "It's a thousand degrees in there."

"Come on!'" He pried open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.

Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn, and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the neon green socks, leaving me wondering who they were.

At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.

The passengers cheered.

"Darn right!" yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. "Everybody back on board!"

Once we got going, I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.

Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.

"Grover?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you not telling me?"

He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. "Aria, what did you see back at the fruit stand?"

"You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, G? They're not like ... Mrs. Dodds, are they?"

His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs. Dodds. He said, "Just tell me what you saw."

"The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn."

He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost - older.

He said, "You saw her snip the cord."

"Yeah. So?" But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.

My eyes widened a bit as I remembered the myth. Those were the Fates.

"This is not happening," Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. "I don't want this to be like the last time."

"What last time?"

"Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth."

"Grover," I said, because he was really starting to scare me. "Grover, you're scaring me."

"Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me."

This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.

"This is really bad right?" I asked.

No answer.

"Grover - that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean I'm going to die?"

He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.

They better be purple, yellow, green, and silver.


	4. You Can Read If You Want I Don't Care

Ok, sooo in my last note, I said I wasn't gonna update anything... Yeah, that was a major lie. I can't take not writing... I was being stubborn and kinda bitchy, so I apologies to those of you who read this. Sooo, to those who are posting/will post bad comments, I will ignore them so don't even bother posting it. If you don't like it, don't read it. And, yes, right now my story Is pretty much EXCTLY LIKE the book. But that's just right now. I just have no ideas for the beginning of any of my books soooo yeah, rant over. Bye! And hopefully I can update soon! 


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